Rehoboth Beach Museum

Visit their website or Facebook, and read on for a feature story about one of their collections objects!

All Aboard for Finland

Like thousands of other people in the summer of 1961, Allan and Jean Fasnacht took a beach vacation to the bustling town of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. By the mid-twentieth century, Rehoboth, which had begun as a Methodist “camp meeting,” or summer retreat, in the nineteenth century, was one of the most popular beach towns on the east coast, complete with all sorts of entertainment venues.

While poking around Rehoboth, the Fasnachts encountered the Sports Center, a small amusement park that happened to be for sale. They already owned one park outside Harrisburg, and the opportunity to open another in Rehoboth was too good to pass up. They bought the park, repaired it after the massive storm of 1962, and opened Funland to eager beach vacationers.

The Rehoboth Beach Museum traces the town’s history from its early years, beginning with the Anna Hazzard “Tent House,” one of the first structures from the camp meeting days, to the present. You can experience a piece of this story through a trip to Funland, still operated by the Fasnacht family, but to dig deeper into the sands of Rehoboth Beach history, you have to stop by the Museum. Funland’s original train engine will be there to greet you.